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Overview
Justin Bieber is the world's hottest new pop star and every music fan's favorite heartthrob! After being discovered on YouTube, Justin's singles have taken the music world by storm! Since then his career has continued to heat up with an appearance as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live and features on the covers of People and Billboard. Fans around the world can't get enough of him, and this book will answer all of their burning questions, including:
--What was Justin's childhood like growing up with a single mother?
--How has his life changed since becoming a pop superstar?
--What are the latest details on his next album?
--How did he teach himself to play so many instruments?
--Who are some of Justin's celebrity crushes?
--What are Justin's possible plans for the future?
--And much more!
With 16 pages of full-color photos, details of his wild 16th birthday party, his early dating experiences and crushes, and info on his hit singles, this biography is a must-have for every fan and the perfect gift! Get to know the real Justin Bieber, as never before!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429988933 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/17/2010 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 179 KB |
| Age Range: | 9 - 12 Years |
About the Author
Marc Shapiro is the New York Times bestselling author of J.K. Rowling: The Wizard behind Harry Potter, and many other bestselling celebrity biographies. He has been a freelance entertainment journalist for more than twenty-five years, covering film, television and music for a number of national and international newspapers and magazines.
Marc Shapiro is the New York Times bestselling author of J.K. Rowling: The Wizard behind Harry Potter, Justin Bieber: The Fever! and many other bestselling celebrity biographies. He has been a freelance entertainment journalist for more than twenty-five years, covering film, television and music for a number of national and international newspapers and magazines.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Crazy Town
Justin thought it was a good idea.
His debut album, My World, had been released November 17, 2009, and, as Thanksgiving approached, he was on the road, promoting the album with a seemingly endless round of press interviews and radio and television appearances.
However, at this point it must have all started to feel a bit mechanical and unfeeling. The normal teenage boy in him probably wanted to be out and about and hanging with real people his own age. As he munched on room service food, played video games, and stared distractedly at the TV, his thoughts were never far from what had quickly become a huge, worldwide fan base, and he thought he should do something special for them.
So when it was suggested that it might be a good idea to schedule an album-signing event at the Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City, New York, Justin immediately said yes.
Which came as no surprise.
Justin's down-to-earth nature had been one of his most attractive traits since well before he burst onto the pop music scene. He had always put other people's feelings before his own and was quick to go out of his way to help them. In other words, he was just an unbelievably good kid.
And it was an attitude that had remained intact even as his popularity rose. The endless rounds of promotion and personal appearances leading up to the release of My World would have been tiring for most adult performers. But Justin's response to it all was to smile and say, "What else do you want me to do?"
Yes, there had been some wild scenes already. Hero-worshipping young girls screaming their lungs out, crying, and doing everything possible to get close to their hero. But so far, the scenes had been fairly manageable. Since Justin's security team was first-rate, professional, and always on high alert when the crowds were predicted to be large, everybody connected to the young singer felt this appearance would be okay.
Word quickly spread through press and Internet announcements that Justin would be at the mall on November 21; he might do a live performance but he would most certainly sign copies of his new album. Members of his full-time security team smiled a tight smile when this appearance was announced. On the surface, it was just another appearance by the latest big thing in show business. But they knew better. They had been around Justin long enough to know what was coming.
His arrival at the mall was set for 4 PM. But literally thousands of fans began to stake out the location hours beforehand. By 6 AM on the morning of the 21st, children, as well as a smattering of parents whose looks said they would rather be anywhere but there, were spotted in groups around the mall. There was evidence in their bleary eyes, messy hair, and rumpled clothes that many had actually spent the night in an effort to be at the front of the line to meet Justin.
Parents and adults in and around the scene were not quite sure what to think. It seemed like good, clean harmless fun. They had had their Beatles and Donny Osmond. It would probably be more of that. But the little girls saw it as a challenge, a quest. You had to be fourteen to understand the importance of what Justin Bieber meant to them.
The mall had been alerted to the crowd that might show up. Security was in place. An area on the mall's second level, well away from the stores, had been roped off for the event. Back in his hotel room, Justin beamed as he heard reports of the estimated 3,000 people already there for his appearance. It was going to be a blast.
The crowd, up till then, had been well-behaved. It was reported later that day that as many as 10,000 fans were actually crowding into the mall. Now they were getting restless but still not out of control. However, that changed around 2 PM ...
Things suddenly became chaotic.
People began pushing and shoving. They began to stampede toward the roped-off area where Justin was due to arrive. They were screaming Justin's name and waving handmade signs. Several people were knocked to the floor and stepped on. The looks on the faces of the security guards revealed they were not as confident as they had been a few hours earlier.
Just when things could not get any worse, somebody yelled out that they had seen Justin in a nearby mall store, which was not true. The young star was still miles away. But that was all it took to incite the crowd, which was now a mob. They clogged stairwells leading up to the second level. A wave of bodies pushed through the ropes and began to press against the metal railings. Suddenly there was the very real concern that the weight of the bodies would snap the railing and send hundreds of children crashing to the floor below.
A call went out for reinforcements.
By the time more than thirty-five units of the Nassau County and Garden City Police Departments were called in, a full-scale riot was on. Justin recalled in an interview with J14 magazine what happened next.
"It was so crazy that I couldn't even get in the building. I wanted to go see my fans. But I was told that if I showed up my mother and I would be arrested."
Back inside the Roosevelt Field Mall, police were doing their best to stop the out-of-control crowd. A reported five people were injured and taken to area hospitals. During the stand-off, Island Records' senior vice president James A. Roppo was arrested for allegedly interfering with the police in their crowd-control efforts by refusing to send a Twitter message to inform fans that the event had been cancelled. Justin's manager, Scott Braun, was also cited for the same offense.
Justin began to feel guilty as news of the riot began to come in. He was particularly troubled by the fact that people were injured. Afterward, he sent a Twitter message to all his fans, apologizing for what had happened and promising that he would make it up to them.
His concern for his fans in this chaotic situation was representative of his attitude. From the moment he began his journey to the top, he always made a point of acknowledging his fans' support and expressing interest in their welfare. This attitude was evident now, when he found himself involved in something that got out of control. And "out of control" was quickly becoming an intregal part of Justin's rise to stardom.
Three days later, Justin appeared on a local television show to explain his version of what had happened. He smiled a sheepish grin and said, "It was crazy and a bit unfair to the fans. It's Biebermania. What can I say?"
CHAPTER 2
Born and Raised
Stratford is one of countless medium-sized towns that dot the Canadian landscape. Located on the banks of the Avon River in the southern portion of Ontario, the town's 30,000-plus population is involved in many things. They have a solid midlevel hockey program and critically acclaimed music and theater programs. Their education system is sound and their crime rate is low. Stratford is a good place to live.
Pattie Mallette grew up in Stratford. She was a bright, inquisitive, highly creative child who by the time she reached the age of seventeen had already set her mind on a career as an actress and singer. She was headstrong and confident. Those close to her were sure that if Pattie wanted to be an actress, that's exactly what she would be.
However, her career was sidetracked by love. Jeremy Bieber was a strapping, good-looking man. It was love at first sight. In no time at all, he became Pattie's soul mate. Needless to say, a permanent relationship would not be too far behind. Pattie knew what she wanted and a life with Jeremy suddenly took precedence over a life in the arts.
Jeremy and Pattie married in 1992, and soon Pattie was pregnant with the couple's first child. These were happy times for Jeremy and Pattie and they set about building a life for themselves as they waited out the months until the arrival of their first child.
Justin Drew Bieber came into the world on March 1, 1994.
The months following Justin's birth were a joyous time. Jeremy and Pattie were attentive parents. They wanted nothing more than a loving home for themselves and for what they were confident would eventually be a large family.
But their idea of "happily ever after" was be short-lived.
The couple had married young, maybe too young. Perhaps they hadn't the maturity to handle an adult relationship. And money was always tight. Whatever the reason, the growing tension within the marriage eventually reached a point of no return and the couple separated when Justin was only ten months old, and divorced when Justin was two years old. In an interview with the Web site Miss O & Friends, Justin looked back on his parent's divorce with maturity and candor.
"I think a lot of kids have their parents split up," he said, "and they should know that it wasn't because of anything they did."
The divorce was amicable. Justin visited his father, a construction worker in Winnipeg, on a fairly regular basis but he lived in Stratford with his mother. Pattie, who changed back to her maiden name Mallette after the breakup, had been raised a Christian and was determined that her young son would be raised the same way. With a strong support system of grandparents and family friends in his life, Justin seemed headed in the right direction.
"He was a good kid," recalled his mother in a J14 interview. "He had lots of energy."
The first sign that Justin might be more than just a precocious child came at the age of two when Pattie began to notice that her son seemed to like to beat on things. Pots and pans. The living room couch. Tables and chairs. And it seemed to her more than just the normal physical acting out of a baby. There was a sense of rhythm and timing to what the very young Justin was doing. At least it seemed that way to her.
That he may have inherited some musical talent was not a complete surprise. Justin's father was a fair to middling guitar player and his grandfather was said to be a very good piano player.
Justin's formal introduction to the drums came at church, where he was allowed to play freely on the church's set. These were not the pots and pans he had gotten used to, but it quickly became evident to the congregation that the young boy had innate talent. His timing on the drum kit and the way he held the sticks was light-years ahead of where a child his age should be. And as intense as a two-year-old drummer could be while playing the instrument, that was the look members of the church saw on Justin's face. The congregation was more than willing to help Justin's musical aspirations along and would regularly bring drums over to Pattie's house so that her son could practice on the real thing.
Occasionally Justin's drumming would get annoying, but his mother could sense that this interest in music would lead him somewhere. So Pattie was tolerant.
"My mom bought me my first drum set when I was four," Justin recalled in his Miss O & Friends interview. That purchase might not have seemed like such a big deal, but the drum set was something Justin's mother could not really afford. Times were tough and Pattie would often work low-paying office jobs just to have enough money to cover the bare essentials. Pattie was a proud woman and would never consider welfare. The level of poverty that Justin and his mother experienced has long been a big part of Justin's rags-to-riches story.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Pattie acknowledged their once-dire straits. "We were living below the poverty line," she said. "We had a roof over our heads and we had food in the house but we really struggled."
However, in a December 2009 interview with Maclean's magazine, Justin indicated that the whole poverty thing may have been a bit overblown.
"I wasn't poor," he recalled, contradicting his mother. "But I definitely did not have a lot of money. I couldn't afford to get a lot of new clothes a lot of the time. We could not afford to own a home. But I had a roof over my head and I grew up getting everything that I wanted."
Justin began his formal education at Downie Central Public School and later at Avon Public School. He was a good, if not spectacular, student, and according to those around him he was apparently a whiz at French. Reports on what kind of kid he was during those early years are all over the map; everything from a boy who was extremely polite to one who could not sit still, was the class clown and was always getting into trouble. He made friends easily and was heavily into sports, in particular hockey, soccer, and basketball.
And like just about everything else he tried, Justin quickly mastered golf. "I started playing when I was six," he told the Sun, "and after a while I started to realize that I was actually okay at it. Right now, I have a handicap of six."
Justin had an active imagination and it went far beyond the normal childhood games of army and cowboys and indians. Justin dreamed of being famous one day. For a while, he wanted to be a professional hockey player. He also went through a phase where he was captivated by the look and feel of sports cars and thought he might be a mechanic or a race car driver. Friends often reported that Justin would spend hours looking at himself in the mirror and would practice signing his autograph.
But in later years he often looked back on those childhood antics and laughed. "I was never that kid that was 'I want to be famous or I want to be out there'," he told the Toronto Sun. "I was just being a regular kid. I didn't think about career stuff. I did a lot of stuff but everything to me was a hobby."
He was your basic ham, seeking attention at every turn. Early home movies always found Justin striking an exaggerated pose or making a face. It was not uncommon for Justin to unexpectedly begin to break dance on city streets. This was the public Justin that family and friends knew.
There was also a private side that few people knew about.
By the time Justin reached age three, he was already showing signs of being a musical prodigy. In less than a year he had taught himself how to play the drums in a reasonably professional manner. Stunned by his emerging talents, Pattie began putting much of her meager income into an endless array of musical instruments to challenge her son, which she hoped might steer his life toward the artistic direction that had eluded her.
First up was the guitar. It was only a cheap Walmart special, but Justin mastered it by the age of six, thanks to a whole lot of help. Justin's more musically inclined friends were more than willing to come over and teach him some very basic chords. He fondly recalled that the very first song he learned was "Smoke on the Water" by the band Deep Purple. Justin's father was also very much in his young son's life, especially when it came to his musical education. He would stop by regularly and teach Justin the guitar parts to such classic rock songs as "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan and "Give a Little Bit" by Supertramp.
Following in short order were his budding talent for both piano and trumpet.
Those in the family's inner circle were amazed that Justin had mastered so many instruments at such a young age. However, Justin, in an interview with the Web site Neon Rainbow, maintained that it was no big deal. "I was just a kid messing around and having fun. I wasn't taking any of it real seriously."
On the other hand, Justin's mother was beginning to take her son's talents very seriously. Pattie would often marvel at Justin's ability to immediately master a piece of music he was hearing for the first time. This talent became evident when Justin was five. After he heard a song on the radio he immediately ran to his keyboard and, in a matter of minutes, had figured out the notes and was playing it exactly the way he had heard it.
Pattie had been an aspiring singer at one point in her life. And because of her love of voice, there was always music in Justin's house. Pattie's taste ran to old-school R&B like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Boyz II Men. Just about any time of the day, you could count on hearing in Justin's home the likes of "On Bended Knee," "End of the Road," "Bad," or just about anything by Tracy Chapman. Justin would absorb the music and, in particular, the different singing styles like a sponge.
By age ten, it seemed natural that Justin began to sing. Those who heard his first efforts at singing classic soul were mostly amused and somewhat impressed. He was young and on the right track. Once again, this self-taught approach to singing soon began to bear fruit. His early, raw interpretation of classic Motown soon morphed into a smoother, pop-oriented style that suited his vocal limitations perfectly.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Justin Bieber"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Marc Shapiro.
Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction: It's Naptime,
1. Crazy Town,
2. Born and Raised,
3. The Hunt for Justin Bieber,
4. Justin Who?,
5. Watch Out ... Hits Ahead,
6. Lights! Camera! Justin!,
7. Star-spangled Road Stories,
8. And Oh ... By the Way,
9. More Videos, Please,
10. No Rest for the Talented,
11. Break a Leg,
12. In Demand,
13. There's a Riot Going On,
14. It's My Party,
15. The Many Loves of Justin Bieber,
16. Leave It to Bieber,
17. The More Things Change,
18. The More Things Stay the Same,
19. And So It Ends,
Epilogue: What Happens in Stratford,
Discography,
A Short List of Teen Idols,
Sources,